Saturday, September 08, 2012

Not the Week I Expected

This was supposed to be a fairly mellow week. Chugging along, not much in the way of evening meetings, prepping for the first session of the DMin. down in Georgia on Monday.

God laughed.

And I had a bad reaction to an injection I give myself every day. I have taken these shots for seven years without problem, but I must have nicked a vein, because I got the mother of all hematomas - scary enough to take me to the ER on Monday. Hurt. A lot.

By Thursday, it still hurt, but not quite as badly. Still it didn't look right to me, so I managed to get an appointment with the doc to take a look. I had an all-day meeting scheduled that day at the diocesan headquarters, but I figured this would take just twenty minutes or so, and the doc was just about a mile away from the diocesan office, so no problem, right? Two and a half hours later, I finally got ten minutes of the doc's attention and a scrip for antibiotics. It's resolving itself now, but it was not fun. And yes, I did miss the second half of the meeting, which was aggravating. I actually did want to be there for it.

And an elderly person died, and there was some dispute whether the memorial service would be at his parish or at our church (one of his children is my parishioner and doesn't care for the other parish or its priest), and there was more dispute over who would do the service, and it went on and on from there. I ended up presiding at the service at the other church - too long a story and not bloggable.

And then StrongOpinions was having issues with the boyfriend and the move to Chicago, etc etc. Long distance mothering is hard on everybody.

And then it was Race Weekend here in the Capitol of the Confederacy. NASCAR. A biggie. Traffic is all messed up, affecting not only my neighborhood (about a mile from the raceway) but ....

wait for it

....the cemetery where the interment of the aforementioned deceased gentleman was to occur. The cemetery was not going to do any interments after noon on Friday, because of traffic. They weren't going to do anything until after Monday noontime, because of the traffic. And this family wanted this done NOW. So we had to make the church's schedule adjust to the cemetery's schedule, which was adjusted due to the racetrack's schedule. Service on Friday at 11 am, interment at 12:15 in the cemetery, reception at the church at 1pm.

It all got done. The service went smoothly, the family was pleased, the interment was beautiful and peaceful, and there was NO traffic jam to or from the cemetery.

A cynical person might say that it was simply a matter of the employees of the cemetery wanting to have race weekend off. After all, it is a bacchanal of epic proportions. Folks were tailgating on the grounds of the raceway at 9 on Friday morning. One gentleman was interviewed on local television, talking about why he liked Race Weekend. "I don't have to be me until Monday." Says it all, doesn't it?

But it was a reminder to me that we all operate on our own inscrutable schedules, and it is not uncommon that the way we think the plan (or the week) will play out is not the way it actually does.

I could be ticked off about it all, but I choose not to. I can only laugh. as I imagine God did when I first thought "well, this will be a light week."

The Rev. Mary Brennan Thorpe

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About Me

A second (actually fifth) career Episcopal priest, I am serving as Rector of The Church of the Epiphany, an Episcopal church in the Lakeside neighborhood of Henrico County, just north of the Richmond city limits.
How did a RC convent girl with a Teamster shop-steward dad end up here?
Married to Pastoral Husband, AKA PH, an ordained minister and full-time pastoral counselor. Three kids from the prior marriage: Strong Opinions, artistic 24 y.o. girl trying on the world for size, Stonemason, 26 y.o. guy working with his hands in the North Country, Litigator, highly verbal 29 y.o. with aspirations to be the next Michael Moore. Two stepsons, 4 step grandkids, a cat. Way too many books.Well, there are never too many books...